Prep football preview: Highland expects to challenge for another state title with 22 new starters and transfer QB
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fifth in a series featuring key storylines for the upcoming high school football season.
POCATELLO — Fresh off a state 5A football title, the Highland Rams will face a unique challenge in a quest for number 13.
According to head coach Nick Sorrell, all 22 starters who led Highland High School to its 12th state championship a season ago have graduated.
“That’s what happens when you have 32 seniors,” he said.
Only five players on the current roster, Sorrell added, even have spot-starting experience, having filled in for injured Rams a season ago.
“At Highland, we always pride ourselves on continuing the legacy, the history, tradition that has been passed down,” Sorrell said. “Our seniors do a really good job of passing that down each and every single year so the underclassmen were, essentially, waiting for this opportunity. They are chomping at the bit — ready to showcase their skills, their abilities.”
To go along with the inexperience of the starters, Sorrell and Highland will go with a signal-caller who has been in the Rams’ system for only a few months.
A year ago, quarterback Keaton Belnap was languishing through a 2-8 season with Marsh Valley High School. This year, he will lead one of the state’s elite programs in its quest to claim a 6A title.
Sorrell explained that, despite the difficulties that come with leading a new system, Belnap has been committed to doing exactly that.
“Our offensive scheme is complicated in itself — there are so many different layers to it,” the coach said. “It’s tough, but he’s done a really good job of coming in and really diving into the playbook, spending a lot of time with our offensive coordinator.”
Belnap, Sorrell added, has met with the offensive coaches for one-on-one sessions and spends an hour to an hour-and-a-half nightly watching game film and breaking down Highland’s offensive scheme. Furthermore, the junior has embraced a leadership role since his first day on campus.
Asked if he feels, even with 22 new players and a transfer quarterback, his team is still a contender for title 13, Sorrell wasted no time before answering in an affirmative.
“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s what we do at Highland, that’s the standard that we have set over the years.”
The standard says the expectation for the Rams is a 34th straight playoff appearance and a challenge for the crown.
By design, the new Rams starters will not have time to settle into their roles. Highland will open the season on Aug. 23, against the reigning Nevada state champions, Legacy High School — in Las Vegas.
Highland returns to Pocatello on Aug. 31 and Sept. 7, when the Rams face Carson (Nevada) and Summit (Oregon) high schools as part of the Rocky Mountain Rumble and Northwest Showdown, at the ICCU Dome on the Idaho State University campus.
Sorrell said that his young team will have to “grow up quick.”
“My hope is that those games, those experiences, will get us ready for go-time,” he said.
By “go-time,” Sorrell means his team’s conference schedule — which will include a conference opener against Thunder Ridge High School, then back-to-back rivalry games, on Sept. 27 and Oct. 4, against Pocatello High School (the Black and Blue Bowl) and Rigby High School.
The key to getting the conference start his team will need, Sorrell said, is learning, through the early non-conference schedule, to check their emotions.
“There’s a lot that goes into the ‘Black and Blue Bowl.’ And, of course, you look at the Rigby game — whoever has won the Rigby-Highland game has won the conference.”
The conference winner, of course, will get a first-round bye in the playoffs and home-field advantage throughout.
Sorrell fully expects his team to be ready in time to challenge for that top seed.